WOODWORM by Layla Martínez

Translated by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott

A young girl lives with her grandmother in a creepy mansion on the edge of town. They’re the subject of gossip and slander. Maybe they’re witches. Or worse. And the house… well, that seems to have a malevolent will of its own. It’s a horror trope honed to perfection in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House; often emulated, rarely matched. In Layla Martínez’s deliciously unsettling novel, the trope is upended and reshaped to brilliant effect. Woodworm is no hackneyed horror tale, but a roaring, class-conscious, feminist cry of rage. And I am 110% here for it!

Told by each of the women in alternating chapters, we follow the wrongs visited upon them by a succession of men, and their awful treatment at the hands of the townsfolk, most notably the wealthy Jarabo family. When the youngest Jarabo boy disappears while in the young girl’s care, suspicion abounds. But could he just have run away? Or is something far more sinister at play? Many writers strive for the spine-chilling greatness of Shirley Jackson. Martinez is one of the small few who succeed. And with a healthy dose of Poe to boot. I’ll raise a glass of Amontillado to that.

Woodworm by Layla Martínez (Tr. Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott)
Harvill Secker, 2024
124 pages